CVE-2020-25603

high

Description

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. There are missing memory barriers when accessing/allocating an event channel. Event channels control structures can be accessed lockless as long as the port is considered to be valid. Such a sequence is missing an appropriate memory barrier (e.g., smp_*mb()) to prevent both the compiler and CPU from re-ordering access. A malicious guest may be able to cause a hypervisor crash resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS). Information leak and privilege escalation cannot be excluded. Systems running all versions of Xen are affected. Whether a system is vulnerable will depend on the CPU and compiler used to build Xen. For all systems, the presence and the scope of the vulnerability depend on the precise re-ordering performed by the compiler used to build Xen. We have not been able to survey compilers; consequently we cannot say which compiler(s) might produce vulnerable code (with which code generation options). GCC documentation clearly suggests that re-ordering is possible. Arm systems will also be vulnerable if the CPU is able to re-order memory access. Please consult your CPU vendor. x86 systems are only vulnerable if a compiler performs re-ordering.

References

https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-340.html

https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4769

https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202011-06

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/RJZERRBJN6E6STDCHT4JHP4MI6TKBCJE/

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/DA633Y3G5KX7MKRN4PFEGM3IVTJMBEOM/

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/4JRXMKEMQRQYWYEPHVBIWUEAVQ3LU4FN/

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-10/msg00008.html

Details

Source: Mitre, NVD

Published: 2020-09-23

Updated: 2023-11-07

Risk Information

CVSS v2

Base Score: 4.6

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Severity: Medium

CVSS v3

Base Score: 7.8

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Severity: High